All in all I can have a Windows machine up and running in about a day and an XP machine in 2 day. A Linux machine normally in about 30 min's to an Hour depending on how many updates there are. Hope this helps.

But Bill, I'm computer dumb and can fix my XP machine in 2 or 3 minutes........... I slap in another hard drive with an Acronis made "exact copy" done on it. Just got 2 replacement hard drives for my decal computer & made hard drive copies. These copies also have my farm dairy programs on it, so they work in the computer in the milk parlor as well.

This might not matter in your case but when My computer is acting up and not doing what it's suppose to do

I find the Clock is off, wrong date and time.

When I have a power outage for some reason the clock resets to a different date and time. Like 4am Jan 1 2002.

Once I reset it everything works good again

The battery on your mother board is dead. You can change it just like you do your watch. Before opening up you case lay your hand on the frame (make sure computer is plugged in) to ground your self. Take the cover off. Locate the battery on your mother board (looks just like your watch battery but maybe a little bit bigger) Pop it out like you would the watch battery get a replacement at Wal-mart or where ever you like. pop it back in, Put your cover back on and set the time and date.

While you have the cover off look around at the boards and cooling fins and fans if they are dusty get a can of air and use it to blow out the dust. Dust is one of the main causes for computer hardware to die. It act like an insulator and holds the heat in which is not what you want.

But Bill, I'm computer dumb and can fix my XP machine in 2 or 3 minutes........... I slap in another hard drive with an Acronis made "exact copy" done on it. Just got 2 replacement hard drives for my decal computer & made hard drive copies. These copies also have my farm dairy programs on it, so they work in the computer in the milk parlor as well.

That's really the best way to restore a computer because it is an image of your OS, applications and data. Unfortunately most folks don't even have any kind of a back up. It also saves you from DL all those updates and service packs, that's the time consumer. Most of your business use the same process. By the way this only works if you are putting the image on exactly the same hardware that the image came off of.

PS: For those who would like to do the same thing OCH is doing but can't afford the software, Clonezilla will do the same thing and it is free.